


now you know me, for your eyes only

by Hazloveshisboo



Series: We Know Where We Belong [8]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: A little bit of angst, Brief description of violence, But mostly fluff, M/M, Non-Serum Steve Rogers/Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes | Shrinkyclinks, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, the story of how they got together, they love each other a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-09
Updated: 2018-05-09
Packaged: 2019-05-04 05:18:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14585781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hazloveshisboo/pseuds/Hazloveshisboo
Summary: Bucky and Steve get together.





	now you know me, for your eyes only

**Author's Note:**

> this is set six months after Steve and Bucky meet and it's the story of how they get together and Bucky telling Steve about how he is!
> 
> title from If I Could Fly by One Direction

Almost six months after meeting Steve, Bucky finally thought he was ready – ready to tell Steve how he felt about him. He deserved to be happy, deserved to live out the rest of his life with someone he loved and cared about; fuck Hydra. But that was exactly the problem.

He had to tell Steve the truth first. 

It was one thing to just be friends with Steve when he didn’t know about Bucky’s past, but it was an entirely different one to be with Steve romantically. Steve deserved to know the truth. 

That night Bucky texted Steve asking if he wanted to have dinner and that he would bring Thai if so. At Steve’s affirmative response, Bucky made his way to their usual Thai restaurant and then walked the short distance to Steve’s apartment, bags of food in hand.

“Hey, Buck,” Steve greeted after opening the door. Bucky smiled and walked in, setting the bags on the coffee table as Steve got plates and forks from the small kitchen. They sat on the sofa together as they ate, making small talk. Steve asked Bucky how his day was and what he did, and Bucky gave him a mostly truthful answer – he went for a walk in the park, browsed a used bookstore for a while, had lunch at his favorite deli. He left out the part where he stopped a bodega robbery, crushing the barrel of the man’s gun in his metal hand. In turn, he asked Steve about his work that day and what commissions he was working on. Bucky wanted to wait until they finished eating before telling Steve, knowing it would be a shock. 

“What’s up?” Steve asked a few minutes after they had both set their plates down. Bucky chuckled a little.

“You know me so well,” he muttered and sat up, looking straight at Steve. “I need to tell you something. Two things really. One, I think, will be good. The other…not so much. Which do you want?” Steve’s eyes widened a little.

“Oh, well. Let’s do the bad one first?” Steve suggested. Bucky smiled sadly and nodded. 

“I want to tell you about my past. About why I am the way I am, what happened to me,” Bucky said. “I want to tell you the truth.” 

“And what is the truth?” Steve asked, eyebrows furrowing. 

“My name is James Buchanan Barnes. I was born in Brooklyn to Winnifred and George Barnes on March 10, 1917. I was a Sergeant in the 107th during World War II and I was officially declared missing in action in 1941 after getting captured by the scientific Nazi organization Hydra.” Steve sat frozen, staring at Bucky with his mouth open. 

“After they captured me and my men, they began experimenting on us. Everyone else died who ended up on that table, but I survived. The experiments they were doing, it was a serum of some kind that would change the body, make it stronger, faster, smarter. Make the perfect soldier. After they finished injecting me, they started the torture. They would do everything they could think of to break me, it’s all in a file somewhere. When that didn’t work they resorted to other means. There was a chair, multiple chairs, really, that would shock my brain until I couldn’t remember anything, not my name, who I was, where I was. I was the perfect soldier,” Bucky took a deep breath. “I am the Winter Soldier, Steve, that’s what they made me. The Fist of Hydra. I’ve killed dozens upon dozens of people. I have assassinated presidents; I have single-handedly started wars. I am the most dangerous man alive.” Bucky kept his eyes down, scared to see fear or rejection on Steve’s face. It was silent for a long moment.

“That was you? In D.C., with the helicarriers?” Steve asked quietly. Bucky nodded. “How did you…get away from Hydra?”

“My brain – the serum they injected me with, it makes me heal faster. So, if I wasn’t wiped every few days I was awake, it would start to knit back together. Slowly, but it would happen. I was on a mission a few weeks before what happened in D.C. and they hadn’t wiped me in over three days and when my handler mentioned Brooklyn, something in me just clicked. I killed everyone with me and escaped,” Bucky said. He finally gathered the courage to look up at Steve to see him just staring at the wall. “Steve?”

“How old are you?” Steve asked, glancing back and meeting Bucky’s eyes. 

“Well, depends on how you count it. One way, I’ll be 98 next month, the other way I’m about 25? It’s a bit hard to count because I was asleep for most of the past seventy years.” 

“What do you mean by asleep? How do you look so young?” Steve swallowed heavily.

“When they didn’t need me, I was put into a cryogenic sleep. They froze me. I don’t know exactly how many days I was awake so I’m not sure exactly how old I am, I would guess a total of at least a few years so I’m probably around 27 or 28?” Bucky explained. “How are you feeling?”

“Sorry,” Steve gasped out. “I just…this is a lot.” 

“I know, and I’m sorry for just dumping all this on you but you deserved to know,” Bucky said. “If you want me to go, I will.” 

“What was the other thing you wanted to tell me?” Steve asked suddenly, almost cutting Bucky off. “You said there were two things you needed to tell me, what was the other thing?”

“Oh,” Bucky looked down at his lap and sighed. “You know I’m attracted to you, I have been since we met. I just…I wanted to tell you that I’m in love with you. And I’m ready, if you are. But you needed to know everything about me before we started anything, it wouldn’t be fair to you otherwise.” Steve nodded and reached over, taking Bucky’s hand carefully. 

“I love you too, Bucky, I’m so in love with you,” he said softly. “But I need some time to process all of this.”

“I understand,” Bucky said and smiled tightly. “I have a lot of baggage and not normal stuff. What happened to me, it really fucked me up. The first three or so months after the helicarriers, I couldn’t eat anything, I had a panic attack anytime I was around more than three people at once, I wouldn’t let myself speak. I had to get over a fear of the shower. I’m a lot of work and I don’t expect you to just accept it right off the bat. Just…text or call me when you’re ready to talk?” Steve nodded again. Bucky leaned in and kissed Steve’s forehead before standing and walking out without a work. Once he got outside he dropped onto the nearest bench and buried his face in his hands. His eyes stung, and it felt like his heart was in his stomach. He knew he did the right thing by telling Steve, but goddamn did this hurt. 

Fuck Hydra.

***  
Bucky was forced to wait a week before Steve reached out to him. He spent his time patrolling the streets and stopping any petty crimes he witnessed, reading books he got from secondhand book stores, and sleeping as much as possible. 

He was laying under a tree in Central Park when he got a text from Steve seven days, thirteen hours, and twenty-nine minutes after Bucky left his apartment. Bucky yanked his phone from his pocket and stared down at the message: wanna come over?

Bucky felt his heart soar. This meant that Steve cared enough to not just ignore him. He sent back a text letting Steve know he was on his way and stood, grabbing his book before taking off towards Brooklyn. 

Bucky arrived in record time and rang the bell to Steve’s apartment. The door unlocked, and he hurried upstairs, Steve already waiting in the doorway. Bucky grinned nervously down at Steve. “Hi.”

“Hey, Buck. Come on in,” Steve moved out of the way and Bucky walked in, stopping and turning to look at Steve as he shut and locked the door. They stared at each silently until Steve took the few steps forward to stand directly in front of Bucky. He reached forward and took Bucky’s hand in his. “I have some questions.” 

“Of course, I’ll answer whatever you want,” Bucky agreed easily, heart thumping at the simple touch between them. Steve led him to the couch and sat them down, keeping Bucky’s hand in his. He used his free hand to grab a notebook and opened it to the first page. 

“I had to write them down, just kept thinking of new ones,” Steve said shyly, blushing just a little. Bucky nodded for him to go on. “What is Hydra? The news half explained it, but you mentioned it was a scientific Nazi organization?”

“Yeah, it was,” Bucky laughed humorlessly. “Run by Johann Shmidt, though I rarely met him. The man that experimented on me and was my head handler for the first ten or so years was Arnim Zola. Hydra was created by the Nazi’s as a way to develop new and more advanced weapons but Shmidt thought Hitler was too tame for what he wanted. Hydra believed that humans could not function when given their own freedom, so they worked to take that away. They wanted to create order from chaos but there wasn’t ever enough chaos so they created it. That’s what I was used for, creating chaos.” Steve breathed in deeply and nodded.

“You said they tortured you when they first captured you,” Steve started, squeezing Bucky’s hand. “What did they do? And you don’t have to go into details.” 

“Well, the form of torture they used most was just beatings. They would have a few guys come in with brass knuckles on and beat the shit out of me. They used waterboarding, they used fire, knives, guns, any kind of weapon they could think of. They…not too many, but a few, they, uh, used me,” Bucky took a deep breath as Steve’s breath hitched. “I don’t remember a lot of what they did the first few years when they were trying to break me, but I’m pretty grateful for that.” 

“I am too,” Steve said softly. “I’m glad you don’t remember all of that. Uh, does anyone know you’re alive? Like the government or something?” 

“The government, no. I have worked hard to keep them out of this. I think SHIELD does, or whatever’s left of it anyway. They had a very empty file on the Winter Soldier, but I don’t know if they know who I actually am. Anyone else who did know about the existence of the Winter Soldier is either dead or believes I went down with the helicarriers,” Bucky explained. 

“Have you killed anyone since the helicarriers?” Steve asked.

“Yes, thousands. I took down all of Hydra, remember? I spent a few months recovering and then I traveled around the world, burning them to ground. When I finished, I came back here and met you about three weeks later. Since I got back to New York, yes. Two people,” Bucky looked at Steve. “And I’m probably going to kill more.” 

“Who were they?” Steve bit his lip.

“I don’t know either of their names. The first was a man trying to rape a teenage girl in an alley. I choked him to death. The other was a businessman, embezzling funds from a charity for terminal children to fund his beach house in Jamaica. I made his death look like a suicide,” Bucky told him. He didn’t feel any remorse for killing these two men, not anymore. 

“And how did you find out about the embezzlement?” Steve asked, sounding confused.

“People are dumb and will talk about anything when they think they can’t be heard,” Bucky said simply. “Any more questions?”

“How did you know you were gay? Or bisexual, whatever you label yourself as,” Steve asked in a rush, cheeks pinking a bit. Bucky smiled genuinely for the first time in a week.

“I was fourteen, there was a boy in my class that just…I had a huge crush on him. And then a few years later I would go down to all the queer bars and the first time I sucked a guy off in an alley, I knew for sure. And I’m queer as they come, dames don’t do it for me,” Bucky explained. “Did you think about the other thing I said?” 

“I did,” Steve nodded. “And…I told I love you too, Bucky. How could I not? You’ve been through literal hell and back and you’re still fighting. You’re a good man and I admire that more than anything. I would love nothing more than to be with you, Bucky,” Steve moved closer and bit his lip.

“That sounds amazing, Stevie,” Bucky said and without warning, Steve leaned in and kissed Bucky passionately, hands coming up to hold his jaw. Bucky kissed back, wrapping his arms around Steve’s waist. 

Fuck Hydra, but at least he got Steve after everything.

**Author's Note:**

> [my tumblr](http://hazloveshisboo.tumblr.com/)
> 
> as always, if you have any requests for this verse just leave a comment or message me on tumblr!


End file.
